This invention relates to a sliding roof for vehicles having a cover that is guided in lateral guide rails and that can selectively be either lowered at its rear side out of an opening in the roof and then slid back under a fixed part of the roof, or tilted so that its rear side is lifted above the fixed part of the roof. In particular, the cover near its edge carries a hold-down device at each side which, when the cover is tilted out, penetrates through an opening of a respective guide rail, the hold-down member contacting against an upstanding guide surface in the area of the rear edge of the opening when the cover is closed and which, when the rear side of the cover is being lowered and pushed back under the fixed part of the roof, dips into the guide rail and is secured by said guide rail against upward shifting movements.
In the case of sliding roofs of this type, as is known from U.S. Pat. No. 4,350,385, the hold-down device, when the cover swivels out, after a fraction of the pivoting angle corresponding to the full tilting-out path, disengages from the associated guide surface, and because of the unavoidable manufacturing tolerances and/or assembly tolerances and/or under the influence of the wind forces affecting the cover (which during fast driving may be considerable), it may happen that the rear edge of the cover, or a sealing means mounted at the rear edge of the cover, may engage on the rear edge of the opening in the roof or that the hold-down device may strike on the top side of the guide surface when the cover is lowered. In both cases, a perfect closing of the cover is impaired or made impossible. An extension of the guide surface in an upward direction, in order to avoid this problem, is impossible because the cover, during the pushing-back process, must be able to have its front edge or a sealing means mounted at the front edge of the cover pass over the guiding surface.
The invention, therefore, has an objective of providing a sliding roof for a motor vehicle where the cover is guided when fully tilted-out, when partially tilted-out as well as during the tilting-out movement in an improved manner that avoids a jamming of the cover in the rear edge area.
Based on a sliding roof for vehicles of the initially mentioned type, this objective, according to the invention, is achieved by the fact that the cover, near its front edge, carries an additional hold-down device at each side that, when the cover is lowered under the fixed part of the roof, can be slid along the guide rail and which, when the cover is tilted out, engages against a rear-side guide connected with the guide rail, said rear-side guide remaining in engagement with the additional hold-down device even when the cover is fully tilted out.
Thus, each of the two additional hold-down devices engage the respective guide throughout the complete pivoting range of the cover. As a result, the cover is fixed against undesired backward shifts irrespective of the fact that it may be positioned in the area between the closed position and the fully tilted-out position. As a result, the cover is always able to perfectly move into the closed position, and jamming in rear edge area is impossible.
The term "close to its front edge", in this connection, should be understood to mean a location close enough to the axis about which the cover is tilted that the guide interacting with the additional hold-down device can extend sufficiently far in an upward direction as to remain engaged with the additional hold-down device even when the cover is fully tilted out without interferring with the pushing-back of the cover after the lowering of the rear side of the cover under the fixed part of the roof.
In accordance with a most preferred embodiment of the invention, the additional hold-down device also engages with a front-side guide, over the full pivoting range of the cover, in order to exclude unintended shifts of the cover, also, to the front.
The rear-side guide and/or the front-side guide may be part of a guide plate fastened to the guide rail, in which case the guide surface interacting with the rear hold-down device may also be developed at said guide plate. As a result, adjustments of position of the guides are possible with respect to the guide rails. However, the guides may also be shaped onto the guide rail as an integral part thereof.
The hold-down devices are preferably fastened or shaped onto connecting links provided on both sides of the cover and which are part of a cover-raising mechanism. An especially simple construction is obtained when the hold-down devices have the shape of pins, the shafts of which are essentially in parallel to a pivotal shaft of the cover located close to the front edge of the cover.
These and further objects features and advantages of the present invention will become more obvious from the following description when taken in connection with the accompanying drawings which show, for purposes of illustration only, plural embodiments in accordance with the present invention.